>Congratulations on this accomplishment. I am filled with admiration and envy! My own experience did not turn out as well... After five years of diligent (but not masterful) study of the German language, I was eager to try it out on native speakers during my first visit to Bavaria. My efforts were met with everything from puzzled looks, laughter, disgust, pity, and requests to "just say it in English". This rather exploded the theory often held out to me by parents and teachers that "people will appreciate it if you attempt to talk to them in their own language". Equally disheartening was the fact that I also did not comprehend much of what was being said to me (in retrospect probably a good thing).

I think part of the problem was/is the way my mind processes language, categorizing into compartments of "English" and "Not English" ...so when "not English" was engaged, a conversation meant to be conveyed in German became increasingly studded with Spanish words (gleaned from the many Spanish speakers living here in California) as my German vocabulary became depleted.

You can be thankful I have no plans to become a translator at the United Nations or anything.